Freedom

made
easy

Beloved Caribbean haunts reveal unexpected views and adventure. A few steps past the waterfront and the margarita bar, you’ll discover

31
 Freedom
made
easy
Beauty Worth the Storm
•••
anegada is the last frontier for us,” a woman
from Tortola in the British Virgin Islands tells me. “We all
know it is the last pristine place.” She follows with a story:
Every time a hurricane threatens, a boat goes to Anegada to
ferry residents out of the storm’s path. “Every time, the boat
comes back empty,” the woman says with a touch of pride.
To reach this place worth dying for, I
board a boat in Virgin Gorda’s Spanish
•••
Story By
Town and ride 15 miles north alongside Ken McAlpine
cartons of fresh vegetables, a Yamaha key- jen Photos by
judge
board and a hubcap. Anegada appears only
at the last minute — a sliver rising just above the sea. Low-lying
Anegada is known as the “drowned island,” which begs a ques-
tion: Why would anyone choose to ride out a hurricane here?
I rent a kayak from Ley Ordenes at We Be Divin’ and
set out alone. Pushing out from shore, cool mud between
my toes, I see the stirrings of bonefish muddying the green
waters. Mangrove and sand flats, a fly-fisherman’s dream,
extend along the island’s south shore. I glide across the
emerald surface, a breeze luffing gently at my back. Despite
thunderclouds massing in the distance, I feel at peace.
I felt the same way earlier in the day when I visited the
Settlement, the grandly capitalized collection of sun-baked
homes where most Anegadians live. Nods and lazily lifted
hands greeted me. Anegada’s population numbers about 200
people, most of whom sustain themselves from the sea, supply-
ing fish to the BVI along with famed Anegada lobsters. When
I asked a local man how many families this represented, he
didn’t linger in calculation. “Seven or eight,” he said.
Within five minutes I’m paddling up to the listing
remains of a sailboat. Shorn stubs of rope hang from twisted
metal, and guano spatters everything above the waterline.
Seabirds sit on a bent railing. The dark shadow of a ray
passes the boat. One man’s misfortune is another man’s morbid
fascination, I think as I drift slowly around the wreck. I’m
absorbed until a crunching sound jars my attention. I’ve run
onto the same reef that doomed the sailboat. For centuries
ship captains have run aground off Anegada. Ley had given
me detailed summaries of the swell and wind direction on
this coast, but he failed to mention this exact patch of coral.
Sliding from the kayak, I tenderly pick my barefoot way across
sharp coral, painfully aware that I may be causing harm to
living creatures. Meanwhile, I hold the bowline in a white-
knuckle grip. Should the kayak slip from my grasp in the
rising wind, I’d have a long and embarrassing swim home.
Back in sufficient depths, I continue west as the low coral
and limestone slash of Anegada, studded with salt-beaten
buttonwood and mangrove trees, scrolls by me. I pull ashore
on the small beach fronting the Anegada Reef Hotel near
We Be Divin’. Ley appears calling, “Hooyah, master chief!”
He’s a former Navy SEAL; a framed citation lauding him for
his dedication hangs on his wall. I don’t deserve the title of
master chief, but I do want to go back out, so I keep quiet.
I’m drawn to remote waters where I can revel in blessed
privacy, and as the thunderclouds advance, I’m starting to
realize that in this place that barely pokes above the horizon,
I am hidden too. I want to worm deeper.
The view from Anegada in the BVI is the Caribbean and nothing but the Caribbean. Opposite: A paddler heads for Loblolly Bay.
“Pomato Point,” Ley advises for my next paddle. “There’s
a nice museum there.” He pauses. The skies are now dark.
“They have a radio. If the weather gets bad, they can call me.”
Halfway to Pomato Point, the rain begins, but I don’t
want to retreat. And more than anything I don’t want Ley
to rescue me. The sea leaps up to meet the now-hammering
rain as I paddle on. At the point, I pull the kayak high above
the waterline and search in vain for the museum. Ley will
later bring me back in his truck to see the oddball collection
of 200-year-old bottles and Arawak artifacts under the leaky
rusted roof — it’s no Smithsonian but perfect for Anegada.
I’m thrilled I’m lost and that the drumming rain has taken
on a cold, goose-pimpling edge. Salt stings my eyes; wind-flung
sand stings my shins. It’s a laughable far cry from a hurricane,
but it shows me what the Anegadians clearly understand. The
same thing that puts the island at risk makes staying here worth
that risk. Rescue boat be damned. I shout out because no one
can hear me, and then I walk along the sand while the raindrops
raise a coralline sea around my feet. explore curaçao >>
 Mostly tamed and
usually welcoming,
Curaçao still offers
a rugged landscape
with a few wild cor-
ners worth exploring.
Off the Path in Curaçao
amy curses behind me. i turn and see her half-
concealed in dead plants, her blue cotton dress caught in the
bushes. Blood trickles down her bare shin. “I don’t under-
stand how you got over there,” she says. There’s no trail here.
Picking my way through the thorn bushes and cactuses had
put me in a trance. Now I notice a prickly pear bulb lodged
in my calf. I’ve lost a snorkel fin somewhere. The ocean we’re
outfitted for we haven’t seen in an hour, and somehow we’ve
entered that storybook wasteland used to scare children into
sedentary professions. Unfiltered sun ricochets off jagged
rocks jutting from desiccated desert bramble. It’s perfect.
“I probably should have mentioned,” I say as I thrash my way
back to Amy, recovering the fallen fin and pulling her dress
free, “I sort of enjoy suffering.” This is our first trip together.
I promised her adventure. She gives me a look I take to mean
get me out of here so I can stop being friends with you.
Adventurer Ryan de Jongh had told us the Blue Room was
the one spot we had to see in Curaçao. Ryan grew up here, and
he trains for trans-Caribbean kayak voyages by paddling laps
around the island. “It’s not on many tours,” he said. “You have
34
Freedom
made
easy
•••
to swim in.” Those are the notes I listen for: little visited, super
cool. So we rented a car, drove to the west end, wound down
a dirt track to a locked gate, backtracked to Boca Santa Cruz
and finally landed at the beach bar/construction site known as
Let’s Go Watersports. Ryan told us to find Captain Goodlife.
The deep tan and the faraway look in his eyes gave him away.
“Don’t go today,” the captain advised. “It’s
••• too hot out there, and the trail is ­overgrown.
Story By
Matthew I’ll rent you a kayak tomorrow morning, 15
miller
minutes paddling, no problem, man.”
Photos by
jon whittle “But we want to walk there today,” I
repeated. Amy wore the patient expres-
sion that suggests impatience. “There’s the trail,” the cap-
tain pointed past his last concrete platform, future site of a
nude sunning deck. “The first five minutes are easy.”
The first five minutes ended two hours ago. Now we push
on through the scrub, scraped up and heat-stricken, and stag-
ger onto a well-kept dirt road. We follow it 10 easy minutes
back to a black pebble beach, Santu Pretu, which we’d ignored
marching the other way. It’s lovely, but it’s not why we came.
35
 It’s too late to keep searching today, so we swim, lie on the
beach and watch the sun come down between Curaçao’s dark
shoulders of layered rock. This secluded place should be idyll
enough, ample reward for a trip to Curaçao and the sting of
salt water in open wounds. But I want to see the Blue Room.
It’s midafternoon the next day when Captain Goodlife
gives a told-you-so nod toward his battered kayaks and duct-
taped paddles. We take the seaworthiest tandem and paddle
through the maze of inshore reefs past the salvaged cruise-
ship lifeboat the captain uses as a dive boat. Amazingly, Amy
has agreed to join me for a new attempt, this time by sea.
Rounding the bluff, we pass yesterday’s pebble beach.
Captain Goodlife told us to look for the black third buoy and a
shrine to the Virgin Mary set in the rock. Past Boka Piskado, as
far as we reached on foot yesterday, we find the third buoy. It’s
black, but there’s no sign of a cave. A starburst pattern in the
rock looks like Mary’s halo if I squint. I’m about to dive under
the cliff to explore when we spot a Zodiac full of divers tying
off to something farther on. Coming abreast, we can clearly
see the arch of the cave entrance, waves lapping at its edges. A
plastic statuette of the Virgin occupies a niche in the cliff. •••
Already out of the water, Amy sits on the damp ledge,
We tie off, ship the paddles and slide into the water. I carry
my camera above my head in a dry bag. Amy has my 3-pound
tripod in a giant Ziploc bag. It’s possible to keep one arm out
glowing in aquamarine light — and smiling at me.
“Beautiful,” she says, another matter of fact.
of the water and kick backward toward shore, but that arm
gets heavy. “I feel like I’m going to drown,” Amy says matter-
of-factly. I want to tell her how good she looks with only her
scarred shins and her face above water, how if she survives
I’ll take her on more adventures. But this may not be the best
time. “Drop the tripod if you have to,” I offer. She doesn’t. We
make it to the cliff and set the gear on a ledge by the cave.
The divers swim out as we swim in. There’s just room
under the entrance arch to float the dry bags and breathe.
Inside, the cavern opens 50 feet across, with a deep blue-green
pool lit from below and a vaulted dome of black rock. A school
of silvery fish flows in ribbons through mushroom-shaped
underwater stone formations. Amy, already out of the water,
sits on the damp ledge, glowing in aquamarine light — and
smiling at me. “Beautiful,” she says, another matter of fact.
We spend an hour in the cave, and no one comes. The
sun outside angles in as it sinks toward the horizon, the
shades of blue shifting as the swell rises and falls in the cave
mouth. We feel the pressure rise and fall in our ears, as if
we’re inside the beating blue heart of Curaçao. A motorboat
approaches outside, Captain Goodlife coming to check on
us. He leaves again, but we’re running out of daylight.
Warm with fatigue, we sink back into the cool water, and
I get that feeling again. Better yet I can see Amy feels it too, Legend has it the
matt h e w mill e r

her face bright. The electric thrill runs through us as we swim Blue Room sea
out under the arch of rock, past the school of fish now fanned cave on Curaçao's
west end can be
across the entryway and backlit by the setting sun. Billowing reached on foot.
silver curtains part to let us through. dive cozumel >> It’s easier by boat.

36 M a r c h 2 0 1 0 islands . c om M a r c h 2 0 1 0 islands . c om 37
 Freedom
made
easy

80 Feet Below Cozumel

•••

as we descend, the ocean’s pure white floor I panic. My regulator must be leaking. My tank is emptying
comes into focus through the clear water — but I don’t care. too fast. My heart beats faster than it does after a kickboxing
My wetsuit sticks to my burnt gringa skin, my tank drags me workout. But Francisco looks at me so intently I’d believe

j o n w h ittl e ; as h l e y f ra x e das ; o p p o s it e : s t e p h e n g ior da n o

around and my mask is fogging. Darth Vader breaths echo anything he said, or rather gestured. “You,” he crisply points.
in my head; I feel like I’m breathing through wax paper. My “You’re fine. Breathe.” His arms rise and fall in the perfect
fins are giving me blisters. A stingray glides breathing cadence. I give the OK sign, half to talk myself
through the scene, at ease, taunting me. It ••• into being OK, half because I don’t want to be a quitter. Still,
Story By
belongs here. That makes one of us. Ashley I don’t like it. I add the universal hand signal for lying in a
Francisco, our PADI dive instructor fraxedas hammock drinking a margarita as the sun sets — the other
Photos by
from Scuba Du, stares at me. My husband, Stephen reason people come to Cozumel. But Francisco isn’t buying it.
Jason, floating next to me and completely Giordano He gestures for us to follow him deeper, toward the reef.
mesmerized by the new world around him, As we kick along the sandy bottom, I think about the
doesn’t notice my anxiety. How can he enjoy this? My ears divers I’ve met on this trip, jealous of their passion for div-
pop. How can so many people — including about 1,000 ing. The couple from Arkansas come celebrating their 40th
daily visitors to Cozumel — enjoy diving so much? wedding anniversary. The wife has a pink regulator and girly
Ten minutes into a two-tank dive, I already wish I’d stayed decorations all over her gear, and she dives wearing a dia-
back at the hotel and practiced my Spanish with the locals. mond the size of a baseball. No wonder she sinks so fast.
My secret: I’m a beach-loving Florida girl who’s scared of the “You’ll love it,” Greg, an IT guy from Texas, had told me
water. Just 15 feet down, sitting cross-legged on the ocean floor, on the boat. “Harness the anxiety. Turn it into excitement.”

Your first scuba dive may be the scariest — and the most exciting. A drift dive off resort-rich Cozumel makes it as easy as it can be.

M a r c h 2 0 1 0 islands . c om 39
 People visit Cozumel for two main reasons: drinking and diving. Only one gives you this view of the Palancar Reef. I was uncomfortable when he said it, camarones al diablo gur-
gling in my stomach, my suit binding in the wrong places. I’m
even more uncomfortable now, and I still want a margarita.
But as Antonio Madrazo, sales manager of Scuba Du, told
me, “You can drink anywhere. People come here to dive.” It’s
true. From our patio at the Presidente InterContinental
Cozumel Resort & Spa, I could see two tiki huts: one stocked
with tequila and abandoned at dusk, the other stocked with dive
gear — and always packed. “Just wait until you see the Palancar
Wall,” Antonio said. “Your jaw will drop.” With a regulator in
my mouth? All their well-meaning advice still sounds ridicu-
lous, but as I fight to stay horizontal, maintain my depth, slow
my breathing, I resolve that if these people can do it, so can I.
As we cross from white sand to 40-foot-tall coral heads, the
famous Cozumel current gives us a 2-knot push. I move with-
out effort, like I’m on an underwater people mover. Scrawled
filefish pucker their lips at me, tails spreading like Chinese
paper fans. Stoplight parrotfish in blue, green, yellow and
pink swim past my mask, followed by a brilliant blue tang. I
don’t even have to kick. I stop fighting and give in to Palancar.
Watching everything around me, I’m no longer thinking,
I’m going to drown! I’m thinking, I want shoes that color!
Francisco taps on his tank to get our attention and
motions for us to come back and look at something in the
reef. Please not something carnivorous with sharp teeth, I
think, but he points to a splendid endemic toadfish in the

•••
I want to go farther. I finally feel like a big fish. I want
to know how deep I can swim. I want to stay down forever.
coral. It’s one of the most elaborately hideous creatures I’ve
ever seen, and I couldn’t have seen it anywhere but three
atmospheres of pressure underwater in Cozumel.
As we drift north in the massaging current, a coral amphi-
theater — pink vase sponges, convoluted barrel sponges,
great star coral, black sea rod — surrounds us. Nurse sharks
swim by. Hawksbill turtles sink their beaks into the most
study all the concentric circles, Etch A Sketch-like mazes and
asterisk bursts that make up the patterns and vibrant colors in
the reef. I’m thinking this intimate view — unlike anything
I’ve seen snorkeling — must be what everyone loves so much.
And then the ground disappears from underneath us,
and my jaw drops — somehow. The Caribbean blue goes
10 hues darker, and the temperature falls at least 15 degrees.

as h l e y f ra x e das ; O p p o s it e : s t e p h e n g ior da n o
appetizing parts of the reef. Spotted morays duck into eel-
only crevices. Jason spots what must be the world’s largest
non-goliath grouper. The monster has entranced a trigger-
fish one-sixteenth its size. The trigger doesn’t move. The
grouper comes at it five or six times, mouth wide open. We
kick against the current, watching until the grouper finally
opens wide and swallows the trigger in one salty gulp.
Fifteen, 30, 50, 75 — my depth gauge tells me I’m 80 feet
underwater, but the surface seems close. I want to reach up and
touch it just to prove my gauge wrong. I’m eight stories under-
water, and I’m not scared. Jason’s eyes smile at me through his
mask. We hover inches above Palancar Reef, so close we can
The Palancar Wall plunges what seems like miles. Even the
fish respect the abyss — only the biggest, darkest, gnarliest-
looking creatures swim over that edge.
I want to go farther. I finally feel like a big fish. I want to
know how deep I can swim. I want to stay down forever.
I turn around and see Francisco communicating some-
thing in broken sign language. I’m too fascinated to under-
stand, but I assume he means welcome to the world beyond
your fear. Jason is staring at me now too. He takes my hand
and squeezes it, happy as I am to be sharing this.
When Francisco gives the thumbs up, the signal to start
ascending, I shake my head no. islands.com/adventures

40 M a r c h 2 0 1 0 islands . c om 41